Argos has shut its long-standing branch in Chatham High Street, leaving the large site empty ahead of an uncertain future. The store closed for the final time on Wednesday, 26 January after more than three decades of trading. Shoppers have called the closure of Argos an 'end of an era', marking a gloomy departure of yet another retail giant from Chatham town centre. Major shop closures in recent years include Debenhams and Go Outdoors closing in 2020 and Tesco calling it quits in 2015. The closure of Argos coincides with the completion of its new warehouse and distribution centre at the £24 million M2CityLink industrial park on Medway City Estate. Sainsbury's, which bought Argos in 2016, is axing 420 standalone Argos stores by March 2024 as part of a restructuring plan to save £105 million. This will leave only about 100 standalone Argos branches across the country, with more stores opening within existing Sainsbury's supermarkets instead. Despite the closure of Chatham's Argos branch, a new click and collect point is due to open at Sainsbury's in the Pentagon Centre. This will be open 8am to 7pm weekdays, 8am to 6pm on Saturdays and 10am to 4pm on Sundays. The Argos at Strood Retail Park also remains open as usual. Argos declined to reveal the number of redundancies that have been made, but it did confirm that staff were offered opportunities to redeploy to alternative roles within Sainsbury’s. It is understood that some of the staff have been redeployed to the new Medway City Estate distribution centre, including the delivery drivers. Argos occupies a 1960s building that was initially occupied by an Edward Bates department store and a Sainsbury's supermarket.
In February 1976, Sainsbury's relocated to its new store inside the Pentagon Centre, closing the nearby branch in the High Street. In 1979, Edward Bates was sold to the Bentalls department store group, which took over the entire building. Bentalls occupied the building until 1984, with Argos moving in shortly after. Plans for the future of the site are unknown at this time. Medway Council's masterplan for Chatham town centre from 2019 suggests the site could make way for a residential development, with a 'possible' delivery frame stretching between 2025 and 2030. Comments are closed.
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August 2023
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